{"id":7538,"date":"2026-06-19T19:50:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=7538"},"modified":"2026-06-19T18:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:08:56","slug":"illegal-migration-undermines-public-support-for-legal-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/illegal-migration-undermines-public-support-for-legal-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal Migration Undermines Public Support for Legal Immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>James Carter<\/strong>, who served as a deputy undersecretary of labor under President George W. Bush, penned a June 16 opinion piece admitting that inconsistent enforcement of immigration rules has created serious market distortions. The surge of illegal labor suppresses wages for Americans competing directly with unauthorized workers while simultaneously driving up housing demand without any corresponding increase in supply, he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Carter conceded that this economic damage <em>undermines the legal immigration system that serves everyone&#8217;s interests<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But immigration reform advocates say this framing is outdated. <strong>Rosemary Jenks<\/strong>, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, dismissed Carter&#8217;s analysis as stuck in 1980s thinking that distinguished between legal and illegal immigration. Americans now understand the country needs to end mass immigration altogether, not merely stop illegal border crossings, she argued.<\/p>\n<p>The citizenship status of foreign workers matters little to American wage earners facing depressed pay, Jenks explained. Whether workers arrive legally, illegally, or through legalization programs, they flood the labor market and drag down wages while reducing incentives for companies to invest in productivity-enhancing technology.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/libsoftiktok\/status\/2066200398226993644\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Recent polling demonstrates growing Republican opposition to legal immigration programs, including white-collar visa schemes that extract workers, consumers, and renters from developing nations and relocate them to the United States.<\/p>\n<p><em>Breitbart News<\/em> has extensively documented employer acknowledgments that American wages rise when immigration levels fall.<\/p>\n<h2>Employers Forced to Raise Wages After Trump Cancels Migration Programs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Rob Liebrich<\/strong>, chief executive of Goodwin Living, a Virginia-based senior housing operator, told SeniorHousingNews.com that labor scarcity forces wage increases. His comments came in response to President Donald Trump&#8217;s cancellation of the Temporary Protected Status expansion that President Joe Biden had extended to 350,000 Haitian migrants.<\/p>\n<p>The entire country is witnessing this economic reality, Liebrich said, noting that wages must rise when the available labor pool shrinks.<\/p>\n<p>Senior housing operators are now pivoting away from reliance on immigrant hires and strengthening domestic recruitment pipelines instead. Aspenwood hired a second internal recruiter, eliminating costs from contracted external recruiters, while building partnerships with trade schools, universities, and local education systems to make the industry more attractive to students.<\/p>\n<p>The reduction in migrant workers will also compel the industry to recruit Americans from previously overlooked regions. Liebrich indicated his company will seek employees from more distant markets where workers feel they lack employment opportunities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rachel Blumberg<\/strong>, chief executive of Sinai Residences in Florida, has raised wages multiple times for positions affected by TPS cancellations, including nurses, certified nursing assistants, maintenance workers, housekeeping staff, culinary employees, and dishwashers, Bloomberg reported. She warned that competition for labor could trigger a wage war, with all employers fighting for the same workers in each city.<\/p>\n<h2>Industry Lobbying and Congressional Support for Cheap Labor<\/h2>\n<p>The senior housing industry is lobbying aggressively to preserve access to TPS workers, with support amplified through sympathetic establishment media coverage. Migration advocacy groups have acknowledged these workers generate 20 billion dollars annually in profits for investors.<\/p>\n<p>Certain members of Congress are attempting to rescue employers from wage pressures by expanding legal immigration channels. In September, Representative <strong>Lloyd Smucker<\/strong>, a Pennsylvania Republican, introduced legislation creating a new H-2C visa category for employers who refuse to offer sufficient wages to attract American workers, most of whom support families.<\/p>\n<p>The Smucker bill would cripple the ability of ordinary Americans to negotiate wages and benefits with local employers such as Indian-operated franchise hotels, chain restaurants, and roofing companies. Bipartisan supporters include Representatives <strong>Henry Cuellar<\/strong>, a Texas Democrat, <strong>Tom Suozzi<\/strong> of New York, <strong>Maria Elvira Salazar<\/strong> of Florida, <strong>Juan Ciscomani<\/strong> of Arizona, <strong>Mike Kelly<\/strong> of Pennsylvania, <strong>Mark Amodei<\/strong> of Nevada, <strong>Andy Harris<\/strong> of Maryland, <strong>Don Davis<\/strong> of North Carolina, <strong>Rich McCormick<\/strong> of Georgia, and <strong>Mike Kennedy<\/strong> of Utah.<\/p>\n<p>This cheap-labor lobbying receives backing from FWD.us, an organization run by major West Coast technology investors.<\/p>\n<p>In his Wall Street Journal piece, Carter attempted to explain why Washington elites and lobbyists have long disregarded the harm their wage-cutting extraction migration strategy inflicts on ordinary Americans. During his service in the Bush administration Treasury Department and Labor Department working on immigration policy, concerns about wage suppression were frequently acknowledged then promptly dismissed as statistical noise, he admitted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/breitbart.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Breitbart News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wall Street Journal&#8217;s editorial board now admits illegal immigration harms American workers&#8217; wages and housing costs, though some advocates argue the U.S. needs to end mass immigration entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[543,7498,7497,2905,209,7499,367],"nfg_topic":[134],"class_list":["post-7538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-immigration-accountability-project","tag-james-carter","tag-legal-immigration","tag-united-states","tag-wage-suppression","tag-wall-street-journal","nfg_topic-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7791,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions\/7791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7538"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=7538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}